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Thursday, 8 November 2012

Secret Places with Sommer Marsden

Here's the lovely Sommer Marsden sharing secrets and her new release, Lion Hearted - look at that cover! - Over to you Sommer...

Secret Places…And I’m not talking about your naughty bits! I mean hidden towns. Secret communities. Shifter havens. This is the basis of Divination Falls book one Lion Hearted. The final destination is a place not really on any map. Not really in any human memory. It’s a secret.Divination Falls isn’t the first secret place I’ve written about. I have “Town” in my book Big Bad. A town basically created and maintained (and patrolled) by wolves. So it was a natural leap for me—seeing as I get fixated on themes and even words, for goodness sake—to write another place that’s cloaked from humankind. (with a few minor exceptions)I think there’s something wonderfully cozy about a secret hidden place. It has that safety aspect that is usually only found in books, rarely in real life—at least in my experience. Which makes it even better to savor and enjoy that sensation when reading a book to escape. Nothing beats a good story.That being said, I certainly hope readers will find my little tale of shifter and empathy to be a good story. I hope that the reader will fall in love with this unlikely couple as much as I have. And that when all is said and done, Divination Falls will seem as tempting and picturesque and yes—more than a little bit perfect—just like it does to me when I write about it.Do you have an imaginary place that makes you feel that cozy safe feeling? Despite all the murders *snort* Lillian Jackson Braun’s little town of Pickax is such a place for me. Or perhaps your place is real. Leave me a comment for a chance to win an All Romance Ebooks $10 gift certificate. I’ll go through all the comments along the Lion Hearted blog tour and draw a winner when all is said and done!XOXOSommer

Blurb:

Tryg Avondale is the muscle for his pride,
and when he’s called upon to hunt down two missing teens, he sees the job for
what it is – a chance to give his pride a break from him and his “nature”. Tryg
is a gay lion and it’s not something his “family” seems to embrace.

He takes with him Luke Dorchester – an empath and the perfect travel companion.
Luke can feel and soothe every emotion that coils deep inside Tryg, and the sex
between them is the hottest Tryg has ever known. Tryg has no intention of
letting his emotions go any further when it comes to this brand new man. But he
also has zero intention of letting him go. What follows is a road trip from
campground to campground, hot nights in hotel rooms and close encounters spent
together as they follow the scent of the two abducted shifters. A scent that
takes them to Divination Falls, a haven for shifters and associated magical
folk; a place where an old evil will surface and Tryg will learn just how far
his love for lion-hearted Luke must take him.

Tryg grunted, almost smiled, and tossed
back the amber liquid. ‘How about another?’

‘You up for trouble tonight?’ Matthew
looked wary, holding the whisky bottle but not pouring. What kind of bartender
didn’t pour?

‘Me? Never.’ Tryg fingered the scar that
bisected his eyebrow and barely avoided his left eyelid. He realised Matthew
was watching, and quickly dropped his hand. ‘I’m fine, Matt. Just pour.’

‘Word is –’

‘Word is none of your business and it’s
just hearsay so … Maybe you should just pour and not worry about rumours.’

Matthew pressed his lips together, nodded,
poured. ‘Fine. But any problems from you, Bolo, and you’ll be banned from my
bar.’

‘Got it,’ Tryg said. ‘And don’t call me
Bolo.’

Matt shrugged. ‘It’s your name, as far as I
heard until you started drinking here. Damn, Tryg, I thought it was your name.’

‘A bolo is a knife,’ Tryg said.

‘And you’re an enforcer.’

‘Go away.’

Matthew grinned and went to fill another
order. That had been close. Tryg had been itching to clock him to teach him
some manners. But he wouldn’t do that.

We thought it might be good for you to have
a break from the pride …

He shook off the echoes in his head and
downed the glass of whisky. About 600 more and he might feel better. He might
even get his drunk on. Tryg set his glass down with a bang and Matt looked up.
He was annoyed.

‘So let him be annoyed,’ he growled.

Someone bumped into him and he practically
roared, the urge to shift rippling under his skin and along his spine. This was
not the day to provoke him. When your pride wants to send you away for “a
break” you’re pretty much over. Especially if you’re supposed to be the muscle.
Again he touched his scar and it made him angrier when he realised he was doing
it. Whoever was behind him had better be ready.

‘What the fuck is your problem? You can’t
see where you’re –’

Something made him bite off his words.
Maybe it was the flash of fear in the man’s bright blue eyes or the nervous
duck of the head that caused sandy blond hair to fall across his brow. Tryg bit
back another roar because he found himself even more annoyed that he found the
kid attractive.

‘Move,’ he growled.

The kid moved. Tryg called him a kid
because he might be 25 to Tryg’s 32. Might.

Their shoulders brushed as he tried to push
past, and he felt a comingling of instincts. The urge to lash out and hurt
immediately contradicted by the urge to protect. What the hell?

‘Sorry,’ the kid said.

Again, he wanted to hit him and kiss him.
Tryg shook his head and moved away. He needed some air. Maybe he’d had too much
to drink.

Or not enough brain cells in your damn
head…

He forced his way through the small bar. As
he passed the first booth he heard Ozric. ‘What the fuck? You’re still here?’

‘You’re not on the road yet, Bolo?’ someone
else piped in.

Tryg tried to drown out the voices. These
were the guys who’d gotten him to the point of being asked to take an
indefinite road trip. Ozric and his crew had issues with Tryg. Issues about his
ways, his job, and who he chose to fuck.

‘Just keep going. Just keep walking,’ he
told himself. He wanted to return to his pride after his mission was complete
and be welcome. Even if his pride included assholes like Ozric and Ronnie and
Dane.

‘We don’t need your kind anyway.’ This time
it was Ronnie who spoke. He was short and sort of out of shape. Were they
forced to live in their animal forms, he’d be the first to succumb to
starvation and die. He was a shit hunter and a worse person. ‘It’s not like you
help expand our numbers.’ He snorted, hefted a beer, looking smug and amused.

That was when Tryg snapped, his body
rippling from the surge of adrenaline and rage. The toxic soup of hormones that
ushered in a shift boiled under his skin and he felt his feet turn to rush the
group instead of keep on a steady course toward the door.

The roar ripped up and out of him, but he
heard it more than felt it. His fingers clenched, then went warm from his
joints softening to reconfigure. He felt a canine tooth slide against his
tongue and tasted blood. It was fine. He wanted to taste blood.

‘Remember what I said, Bolo!’ Matt called
from the bar. Tryg caught a flash of his wide eyes and his fingers delving
under the bar where a dart gun was kept. One shot from that thing and almost
any shifter in the bar went down like 50 pounds of shit in a 10-pound sack. The
only creature to ever manage to stay conscious had been a visiting shifter –a
Kodiak bear.

The Bolo reference only made him angrier
and he moved fast. Faster than was normal even for him. His nails had just
bitten into the soft wood of the table, ready to tear the top off and maybe use
it to beat the fuck out of the morons sitting there – but then a hand settled
on his shoulder.

Two things happened. His brain said
“attack”. His body said “relax”.

What the hell?

He turned to find that boy. Those water
blue eyes wide but intent. ‘Easy,’ the kid said.

Tryg considered taking a swing anyway.
Attempted to tell his brain to raise his fist to clock this kid and teach him a
lesson. His body betrayed him. Under all the confusion, that made him nervous.

‘Are you insane?’ Tryg rumbled, but felt
his muscles relax further, his claws contract, his muzzle reform. He felt a
loosening in his solar plexus and a syrupy kind of peace.

Sommer's
short works can be found in well over one hundred (and counting) erotic
anthologies. Her short stories have also been included numerous adult and
romance magazines--both in print and online. Visit sommermarsden.blogspot.com
to see what’s up and drop her a line.